Why should I train Chef to level 500?

[GW Noob.6038]

Title. As an individual it seems rather pointless to go to all the trouble (hassle and expense) to train my Chef skill to level 500...so, why do it? Enlighten me.

Edit: Thanks for all the responses, guys! For me, there is no benefit to raising my Chef discipline to level 500. I don't care about achievement points or titles, and I never do raids, fractals, WvW, or PvP content. Thought I would get some opinions just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Thanks again, guys!

Edit #2: Ahh, guys...I just thought of a good reason to level my Chef skills: Metabolic Primers. I forgot about those because I hardly ever use them as they are way too expensive. I have 112 Black Lion Chest keys and enough chests to use them on...as soon as Anet changes the contents of the BLC to something that I want to try for I'll see if I can get some Metabolic Primers out of the deal. ;)

[Galmac.4680]

I did it for the extra achievement points :o B)I know I will never cook that extra expensive food for some less extra damage that I don't need in my scenarios.

[Melech.4308]

@GW Noob.6038 said:Title. As an individual it seems rather pointless to go to all the trouble (hassle and expense) to train my Chef skill to level 500...so, why do it? Enlighten me.

You get ascended food which you can use to feed an entire army, your raid group, etc.

[Susy.7529]

For the sweet APs.

[borgs.6103]

When you do end-game content like Fractals, Raids or WvW, you're gonna need some quality consumables. You may find yourself researching about the food you'll be using in those content and see that that some ascended versions are way cheaper and give more value in them. The expense and hassle to train your chef skills are worth it in the long run because you will be actually spending less money using ascended food over their level 400 counterparts. This is not even saying that ascended food are all feasts - meaning anyone in your party/team/nearby vicinity can use them. They stay where you dropped them for five minutes or until you leave the map.

Not a lot of people know this or probably even care. So maybe someday the prices of ascended food will catch-up and overtake their normal counterparts.

[Reverielle.3972]

Well completing the chef story-line basically gets you to 500, and is easy and relatively cheap (from memory). I think then when your character is 500 they will have a chance to find additional seed when harvesting various plants with a sickle, which sell from a couple of copper up to 30 silver each. So I suppose you could see it as an extra source of harvesting income?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Just to clarify...once your account has a L500 Chef, any character can harvest Varietal Seeds from various Herbs and Jungle Plants.

There's also a Chef Station, with accompanying 'Master Chef' in your Home Instance for any L500 Characters on the account.

[Ashantara.8731]

Even if you will never craft ascended food yourself, the journey alone is quite enjoyable/fun, plus you get AP (as mentioned before), so that alone is worth it IMO. And the extra crops you harvest from plants can be sold for good money, if nothing else.

[LucianDK.8615]

not to forget an extra seed plot in the home instance

[Linken.6345]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Just to clarify...once your account has a L500 Chef, any character can harvest Varietal Seeds from various Herbs and Jungle Plants.

There's also a Chef Station, with accompanying 'Master Chef' in your Home Instance for any L500 Characters on the account.

Im only at 491 and all characters can already harvest varietal seeds.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Oh, cool. Must be L450, then.

[Blocki.4931]

The journey there can be quite fun too. You unlock new drops which can be a source of income, even if you dont care about it yourself.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

kinda like saying why should I play this game? for entertainment value. If you are not enjoying then you shouldn't craft, lvl up, buy diamond, collect gold, hunt AP or Play game.

[Super Hayes.6890]

I'll be that guy. You should do it so you can make ascended food for me so I don't have to reach chef 500 ;)

[Westenev.5289]

I did it to discover if there was any culinary benefit to using bloodstone dust in food.

Also.

Eggs Benedict.

'Nuff said.

The miniquest is kinda fun, so I'd suggest doing getting 500 cooking if only for that.

[anninke.7469]

@Westenev.5289 said:I did it to discover if there was any culinary benefit to using bloodstone dust in food.

Also.

Eggs Benedict.

'Nuff said.

The miniquest is kinda fun, so I'd suggest doing getting 500 cooking if only for that.

Pretty much the same reasons :)

[Maria Murtor.7253]

I was hoping to make some exotic Butters, but Eggs Benedict are fine too, also the sweet, sweet AP.

[Danikat.8537]

Honestly I just did it because it was there to do.

I'd already levelled chef (and all the other crafts) to 400 so I had the option of crafting stuff if I ever wanted/needed to. So when level 500 chef was introduced I was able to go straight into the collections, which were quite interesting and had more of a story to them than levelling crafts usually does. Plus I already had most of the materials needed, so it wasn't a big expense for me. I haven't actually done much ascended food crafting yet, but like the other crafts I like knowing I have the option.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

Well this reminds me that I never got around to doing this. I think I was working on getting all my mastery points when this came out and that was my focus at the time.Thanks for all the helpful info! :)

[Teratus.2859]

I might do it for AP and the 3rd crop pot home instance upgrade but I don't really care about food in Gw2 all that much anyway.

I keep a few types on my mains, mostly cheap, easily farmable festival foods but most of the time I'm not even using them.The more expensive ones just feel like a waste of resources or money tbh.. not worth the benefits they give.

[Rasimir.6239]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Just to clarify...once your account has a L500 Chef, any character can harvest Varietal Seeds from various Herbs and Jungle Plants.

There's also a Chef Station, with accompanying 'Master Chef' in your Home Instance for any L500 Characters on the account.It doesn't depend on your chef level (other than lvl 425 being needed to start the questline), but rather on a step in the Sylvari chain of quests where you are introduced to varietal seeds. Once your chef has finished that step (I think it's the one before you build your own composter) every character on your account can harvest varietal seeds while gathering certain kinds of herbs.

The composter is another plus for me, as it allows me to salvage all the useless food that kept clogging my characters' inventories because my inner hoarder wouldn't just throw away/sell it even though none of my characters used it anyway.

[Pifil.5193]

If you're not interested in the ascended recipes then it's still worth doing the Sylvari part of the collection to unlock the varietal seeds and the charr part to unlock the better cuts of meat.

They're worth selling at the Trading Post and don't cost much to unlock, IIRC, although if you complete the Sylvari section you unlock a garden plot for the cost of 4 spiritwood plans and and Elonian leather square.

Personally, I just did it because it was there to be done, to "finish" cooking on my account. I don't think I've made any ascended food (or indeed, any food at all) since.

[Julischka Bean.7491]

@Super Hayes.6890 said:I'll be that guy. You should do it so you can make ascended food for me so I don't have to reach chef 500 ;)

I will make ascended food for you. If you see me online just let out a holler. I am on US servers...and if any Raid groups or such want ascended food let out a whisper. I might be too awful to team with, but I like to feel useful...oh, hmm, and in the Whisper tell me what goes into the recipe. I always use the -20 incoming condition food so that is what I am automatically set up with.

[Blanger.3162]

I did it for the AP (I did the same leveling Scribe to 400 which cost a ton of gold lol), making ascended food is a nice benefit if you have the need, the cost wasn't for me that much since I horde lots of items, but I'm now within striking distance of the 15k AP I'm been working towards for the last month or so.

[kratan.4619]

SO that you can harvest and store the ascended plants to increase your GW2 Efficiency account rating.